Neo Fruit by Meydan Levy. Suggested for future food consumption

Project description by Meydan Levy

World population is growing rapidly, raising the demand for food consumption higher than ever before.

Modern Agriculture has been using various methods to reach this growing demand, first by expanding farmland, second by using chemical enhancers, fertilizers and genetic modification.
These methods had helped grow more food faster, but with a high price. First, air, ground and water pollution, penetrate the fruits and vegetables consumed. Second, reducing residential land by expanding farmland. And last, huge quantities of discarded fruits and vegetables, thrown away for not meeting esthetic standards created by genetic modification. Nutrition Supplements might be the solution for these problems.

Nutrition supplements, today, lack a relation between shape and content, and are produced as powders, capsules or spheres.

Neo_fruits intends to fill this gap, offering a food of the future that considers shape and content as critical for the eating experience.

Fruit provoke emotions and desires, have a perfect packaging, they interact with their consumers, using color to indicate which minerals and vitamins they contain, what their flavor is, and how ripe or rotten they are. A whole world of visual, sensual, nutritional and practical experience bundled together in each fruit. This full sensual eating experience is missing in food supplements produced today. This fact impacts humanity in the psychological and physical level.

Technology today enables the creation of endless options, with 4D printers. Neo_Fruits are produced in this technology, using Cellulose, an Organic material. This Material can be utilized for structure and for content. We printed a flat structure of a peel and filling made of cellulose. This dry structure is enriched with phytochemicals. Micro- tubes were implemented in the structure of these fruits. After printing, mineral and vitamin enriched liquids will be injected into the micro-tubes. With the injected liquid, the fruit comes to life. Its volume, color, texture, flavor and final structure will be finalized. The liquid gives the 4d print meaning, transforming the object from a printed object to a vital being...

The Water injection re-shaping the object AFTER printing, has a number of advantages:

1. print space is used efficiently, as the product is produced flat;
2. ability to create a dynamic, life-like object (example: design the liquid to indicate shelf life);
3. and an efficient packaging and transportation.

This technology, 4D printers, and this material, Cellulose, enable us to think of future foods in a colorful and creative way, very different from the dystopian more common vision of food supplements and future foods. This vision is of an advanced society, considering health and nutrition as a full experience, all while considering the environment.

My main Focus was to create an eating experience that benefits all parties, in its design and nature.

The design of Neo_Fruits does not wish to critique, but to present an aspiration, a vision, derived of curiosity and thought, a bridge between industry, nature and human.